"James Sharman" <james at exaflop.demon.co.uk> writes:
> On a completely different track, who is to say that the eventual
> replacement of humanity with an enhanced version is not the way to go. It
> may be possible to view this development as a bizzar twist on evolution. You
> should also rememeber that these supermen will be our decendants and it does
> not take to much for us to wish the best for the future.
>> thag: ook, look at them with clubs and fire
> thog: They replacing us, must put a stop to it.
That was my biggest problem with the monumentally stupid US television
series "Prey" -- exactly why was a new race of superior beings a
*problem*? Half-;), of course.
Also interesting is to what extent this already happened among hominids.
Were there still groups of Homo Erectus around as recently as 40,000
years ago? (In which case "we" didn't evolve from *them*, even if
we might have evolved from genetically similar ancestors of theirs,
presumably.) Was Neanderthal Man an ancestor, or just a failed
competitor, of Homo Sapiens ("we" above)? It might turn out that
there was quite a bit more of co-existence among these hominids than
we used to assume, in which case it's interesting that Homo Sapiens
"won out".
And while it's tempting to assume that we might be the first species
in history to be able to consciously recognize and combat our own
wholesale replacement, previous assumptions about the "primitiveness"
of hominid species other than ourselves seem to be getting challenged
recently. (Unfortunately I rely pretty much on "educational TV" for
most of these perceptions; just don't have the time to read up on
what I find a rather interesting topic, and I don't have that much
faith in TV.)
In any case, recent events have strongly suggested that one of the
most likely recent scenarios of a takeover of the human race is
now rather unlikely to take place.
In particular, it's now pretty clear the Spice Girls can't stay
organized over the long run.
--
"Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful."
James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson burley at gnu.org